Thursday, November 5, 2015

Can you guess why Jean Talon is so happy today? This year marks the 350th anniversary of his arrival in the colony. Among the measures he undertook as intendant was a count of the colony's population. Louis XIV's energetic minister Colbert had instructed him, in March of 1665, thus:

In other words, Talon was to visit the settlers through the St. Lawrence Valley and ascertain their conditions in order to best meet their needs. From January through July of 1666, he and his enumerators carried out the first census in Canadian history. Talon, in fact, did much of the enumeration himself. They counted 3215 (actually 3173) men, women and children. Colbert asked for another census to be taken the following year, seeking greater accuracy and even more information on which to base colonial policy. Intendant Talon and his people counted not only colonists this time, but also their cattle and acreage under cultivation. These early censuses are not supremely accurate records. According to historian Marcel Trudel, the first census missed about a quarter of the colony's population and the second a sixth. Still, it was a valiant effort and a ground-breaking moment in the history of data-driven policy on this corner of the planet.

Those who follow Canadian politics will have heard that the mandatory long-form census, having been abandoned in a fit of narrow-mindedness by the late Harper government, was reinstated today as one of the first measures of the Trudeau Government. "We need good, reliable data," announced the new Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains. Colbert and Talon would approve. Charlevoix does too. Historians love censuses.

Let's hope that Statistics Canada and the new Canadian government do not allow the 350th anniversary of the first census next year to go unnoticed. It is a moment worth commemorating.